Election Day

Yesterday there were town council elections in my tiny corner of the world. The ballot paper looked like this (minus the cat): (The monstrous thing Teh Kitteh is sitting on is not the actual ballot paper; it’s what we were sent in preparation for the ballot so nobody would freak out in their booth on election day.) Why was the ballot paper so large, you ask? Because there are 93 seats in the Frankfurt town council, and the Powers That Are decided it would be much more democratic all around if everybody had 93 votes. (Teh Kitteh was much puzzled)

To make matters more confusing, you could vote for a party list or for individual candidates, and you could give each candidate up to three votes out of your 93. (At that point, Teh Kitteh gave up and started to attack the ballot paper instead.)

You could also rule out specific candidates (though not in the manner Teh Kitteh employed, by ripping off parts of the ballot paper.)

It kind of makes you wonder how many people did not go to the elections because they didn’t understand the procedure or couldn’t decipher the relatively small print of the ballot paper. (Teh Kitteh, for one, decided to hide beneath the ballot paper.)

And even when you had carefully studied the lists on this paper, a somewhat nasty surprise awaited you in your election booth: in addition to the broadsheet monster, you also received another, similarly sized ballot paper (which The Powers That Are had not sent out beforehand) for the town council of your suburb.

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About Me

Award-winning author Sandra
Schwab started writing her first novel when she was seven years old. Thirty-odd years later, telling stories is still her greatest passion. Since the release of her debut novel in 2005, she has enchanted readers worldwide with her unusual historical romances.

She lives in Frankfurt am Main / Germany with a sketchbook, a sewing machine, and an ever-expanding library